The present invention relates to apparel component handling and, more particularly, to automated turning and pressing of apparel components.
Numerous components are utilized in the apparel industry that require handling prior to completion of a final product. Such handling includes, for example, turning or inverting run-stitched apparel components as well as pressing apparel components for utilization in subsequent garments. Pressing of an apparel component or sub-assembly is an operation that affects the quality, appearance and marketability of the final apparel product.
Apparel products, or sub-assemblies, may be two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Examples of three-dimensional apparel products include suits, trousers, jackets and the like. Products such as suits, trousers and jackets are assembled from an array of smaller two-dimensional apparel sub-assemblies or components. For example, two-dimensional sub-assemblies for a dress shirt include the collar, sleeves, epaulets, pocket, and cuffs.
The present invention relates to handling of these two-dimensional components or sub-assemblies. While reference throughout is made to the collar of a dress shirt, such is for illustrative purposes only, and it should be understood by those of skill in the art that the present invention has applicability to a variety of two-dimensional apparel components or sub-assemblies.
Currently, special purpose machines exist for carrying out the turning and pressing of shirt collars. On the known commercial machines, turning and pressing is done one-half collar at a time, which is referred to as single point turning and pressing. Some disadvantages of these apparatus are that the quality of the crease generated is directly dependent on the operator's skill, and the entire collar is not uniformly pressed. Another disadvantage is the time involved in completion of a turning and pressing operation for each collar.
Other apparel component processing devices and methods are illustrated, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,139, U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,498, U.S. Pat. No. 3,633,799, U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,547, U.S. Pat. No. 3,793,968, U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,682, U.S. Pat. No. 3,419,199 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,799,086.